In 2004 the Iraq Survey Group (ISG) completed
its inspection and investigation activities into
alleged nuclear, biological and chemical (NBC)
weapon programmes and weapon-related activities
in Iraq. In October the ISG released a substantial
unclassified report on the search for such
weapons and its findings.

This
caused problems for many democracies with
troops in Iraq. Some, such as Hungary and
Spain, withdrew their forces and others considered
doing so—adding to the fragility of the situation.

The same year in the US presidential election campaign, the
two main parties offered little alternative thinking
in the main security-related areas—Iraq, homeland
security and intelligence reform.

Nationally led ‘coalitions of the willing’ of the
kind that undertook the military actions in
Afghanistan (2002) and Iraq (2003) pose the
greatest structural challenges of all for parliamentary
oversight, since the interstate component
of decision making is not carried out through
an established, transparent multilateral institutional
process.

The basic question is, of course,
what rights parliaments should have, but their
near-exclusion from the sensitive judgements
surrounding intervention seems incongruous in
an age that generally emphasises democracy.

The war in Iraq has increased the share of the
arms industry held by companies providing services
and has reinforced the focus on new military
technologies. There is only limited transparency
in the contracting process for work in Iraq. What
transparency there is depends on NGOs compiling
information about the size and content of
contracts and about the companies that are
awarded them, SIPRI said.

Iraq is sitting on 10% of the world’s oil reserves - 112bn barrels, second only to Saudi Arabia. That’s 16 years worth of US oil consumption. It is only currently producing a fraction of that potential, and large sectors of Iraqi territory have never been fully explored, so there is a good chance that their actual reserves may be far greater. The US Department of Energy confirmed that ‘Iraq's oil production costs are amongst the lowest in the world, making it a highly attractive oil prospect.’

Yet there are alternative routes. As Peter Hain, UK Foreign Office Minister of State, has said:
‘There is no better way to enhance our energy security, and thus to increase our ability to pursue our broader foreign policy objectives, than by finding innovative and cost-effective ways to reduce our dependence on oil as a transport fuel. Doing so would also have the added benefit of boosting other domestic and foreign policy objectives, particularly those on air quality and climate change.’